Haven’t listened to anything from Stardusk/Thinking-Ape in a long time, but come to find out his newer material very much jibes with my own thoughts at this time.

He’s right. World War II was a serious game-changer, for various reasons. Not least of which was that it promoted widespread sympathy toward Jews in particular since the Holocaust centered around them categorically being blamed for the ills of German society, leading then to a plan for their extermination. This is what our history books tell us repeatedly, however factual all of the related claims may be. It’s that historical focus that has been spread down, generation to generation, to all of us alive today, drilling into our minds how horrific of an event it was and how we must NEVER (under ANY circumstances) allow an atrocity of that nature to occur again (most especially against Jewish people). I got the message full-on and took it very seriously while growing up, as have most others. Seems like the most humane position to take.

What that message left out were the atrocities committed by communists in the Soviet Union and China. Instead of us being taught more broadly about totalitarianism we were specifically indoctrinated with information about Nazi Germany (at the comparative exclusion of all else). Was that an accident? Doesn’t appear to be now, does it? Considering school curriculum still hasn’t been updated to address this imbalance many decades later.

Why? Well, it appears the U.S. government had some sort of affinity with the Soviet Union all along, even after we publicly ceased being known as allies and entered the Cold War. So much that we are taught is slanted, intentionally distorted — lies by omission. How do you prove such a claim? I don’t know, but the evidence seems clear enough right about now in viewing what’s been unfolding across time.

Yes, the Political Left has been making incremental changes over many decades, leading them to possess the power they wield today. And yes, any attempt to lawfully shift the political tides would also take a concerted effort spanning decades. The problem is there isn’t time left for such a gradual game change. This country has already been compromised and now, partly thanks to the rise of Big Tech and the stronghold of globalizing powers, this process is guaranteed to speed up. Meaning that the Left will make more rapid moves and greater changes in the years to come, further transforming this country and culture beyond recognition. How do you stop a runaway train?

The old way lost, and if I’m honest with myself I can admit that this really began at the time of the Civil War. That defeat was the beginning of the end. Half a nation of people were successfully fought and disallowed from seceding. Tyranny forced compliance, and the South laid down and accepted those conditions in the end, and has been harshly treated by the history books ever since. So much so that people have allowed themselves to be convinced that it was a war fought over slavery, dismissing all talk of states’ rights as if that’s some sort of humorous deflection from facts and reason. That’s where it all began in this country, truly, because that’s when a part of Americans’ spirit died. The dissidents of that era were taught that resistance is futile, and they—despite their big talk ever since—did not stand by the words of the forefathers they claim to love so much and DEMAND either liberty or death. No, instead they laid down their guns and chose to live. And this is what they’ve lived for, this nation as it stands today is what they passed on to successive generations. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

Decades later, Americans were united under the guise of protecting our freedom by engaging in World War I & II. Do you know what really undermined us after the Second World War? Our compassion. Noble as it is, that proved to be Americans’ undoing. Compassion toward Jews and the story of the Holocaust wound up being our shackles on down the line. I do not say this as someone who has a particular problem with Jewish people (as already explained before elsewhere on this blog) — just that I can see how that narrative weakened us in terms of convincing us that violence on that scale was wrong in all cases for Americans (at least on American soil). Nevermind the killing of others we commit in wars abroad since — that somehow proves less relevant, despite many in the Middle East considering this a Holocaust of sorts being brought against them (and quite effectively, I might add). I’m not much of a defender of Muslims and am known to be very critical of their religion, speaking out regularly against their immigration to Western nations, yet still I can see this plainly.

Our shackling to Israel has been out of a deep sense of guilt (for whatever reason) and alliance through compassion (as well as Christians being convinced by their televangelist preachers that the Jewish people must all return to that region of the world if ever Jesus is to return to the earth — crazily enough). But even now when many can see that Israel is undeserving of so much military aid, we the people can’t seem to stop it. Politics have gotten outside of our control.

Compassion undermined us. Why? Well, for one, it dulled our collective imagination and kept us from seriously reckoning with the idea that some groups within our society mean to do this nation harm and ought to either be locked up or expelled. And because we’ve been heavily steeped in propaganda about that war, along with being strongly influenced by Jewish thought through the media and Hollywood productions, we’ve come to embrace the notion of multiculturalism, not yet knowing that that would prove to be our unraveling. (Or at least it rendered us unwilling to stand up for one culture above others, setting the stage for events to come.)

Some of this appears to be due to trends not specific to or arising from American culture in the last century, such as postmodern thought imported from France. So perhaps this trend is more universal, less localized, as it now seems to be unraveling European nations as well. Has this been intentionally orchestrated? Hard to argue that it hasn’t been. Perhaps just a result of a preponderance of chicanery where opportunists seized at every point along the way what influence and power they could.

Stardusk mentioned how this likely can’t be reversed quickly, short of some sort of war breaking out perhaps, and then there’d be the risk of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. Which to me means something akin to what arose out of Wiemar Germany. (Though, who would we fight today and how? Declare war on all who consider themselves left of center? Besides, most are far too docile to seriously consider taking matters into our own hands if it involves violence. Except maybe thugs/Antifa.) We hear people today so readily dismiss one another as “fascists” for any little deviation, anything they can label and denounce as wrongthink. That’s priming people to accept that resistance is futile, knowing you’ll be mischaracterized and roundly attacked by their fanatical army (while most of the brethren on your own side sit out the battle, preferring not to have their good names wrecked by weighing in the fray). So those willing to step into the ring and fight at this point can’t help but be outliers, and they will all find themselves harshly labeled as belonging to the “alt-right” and accused of being “nazis” and “full of hate.” Others will distance themselves from these people as a result. We might speak about them online and attempt to defend them with our words, and, as we already see underway, we will be punished accordingly (some even going so far as losing their jobs — more and more this keeps happening).

Makes a person really stop and question their morality and where they learned it from. I often have to ask myself if my beliefs are born out of a slave morality, because it seems that way when it renders me incapable of even launching an effective defense. That calls into question the role of Christianity (or at least how it’s commonly interpreted) at this point in history, though I will leave that topic for another time.

What do we owe to one another at this point? How do you contend with people who don’t give a damn about the principles you’re struggling to uphold? And what do you do if those same principles are tethering your hands and disallowing you from going toe to toe with those hell-bent on supporting tyranny? I don’t know, but I ask myself this regularly enough nowadays.

There doesn’t appear to be a future worth salvaging in this dilemma. If we opt to try to live in peace, then we’ve agreed to comply — we’ve chosen complicity. It’s anyone’s guess what this nation will be like in 30 years at the rate it’s currently going. Does their “vision for the future” truly look to you like a healthy place to raise kids? Does it appear to be the kind of society you’d like to live to old age within? Serious questions for serious times.

Some might read this and think I’m just upset about the Kavanaugh confirmation or some other current event, but no. I don’t care much about that matter aside from taking issue with how ruthless the politics at play are showing themselves to be. Have no stake in him as a person and don’t particularly care about his career either way, though it is rough watching a man get dragged through the mud if he is innocent, all because of unprovable accusations brought to light at the perfect time to do maximum damage. Just sayin’. I’m tired of seeing this gender war devolve into woman screaming that they deserve to be believed no matter what, evidence be damned. This idea that people can ruin our lives with their words and we’re left with no recourse. All because of politics unchained. Been coming to this for a looong time, and now it’s threatening to upend so much that’s fundamental in our society, including a right to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But, if we’re honest to ourselves, we’ve been here before during the Jim Crow era when an accusation was all that was needed to determine a man’s fate. So perhaps this nation’s foundational principles haven’t been shit for over a century already. Perhaps we’ve been fooling ourselves to imagine otherwise.

So then I get to wondering what it is we’re supposed to be fighting for here? A revival of America? How is that even possible? We’re far too divided and have been for so long. Probably irreparably so by now. We like to think Leftist were supposed to be the compassionate ones, the “bleeding hearts” among us, and yet look at what’s been happening all around. Do you see compassion there? Yet so-called conservatives keep pandering to them, as if that’s the way this game must be played.

You know what I think? I think this is a bit of an indictment of capitalism, at least in this most-modern era, because it allowed people to branch off in pursuit of our own individual goals and dreams, relinquishing loyalty to our communities in the process. Chasing money has corrupted us to where we now stand divided. We don’t know one another barely anymore and have little reason to trust one another. We don’t share a common faith any longer. Our values are selected at will. Many don’t even vote, especially not locally, thereby dropping the reins even on what little political power they may have possessed. All because we were busy celebrating our individuality and trying to get ahead in the economy. Well, now we’re up against a united front of ideologues who are possessed by a drive toward power. What can be done about that? Certainly not an issue to be rectified by voting this late in the game.

So then what? Shall we drown our sorrows in nihilistic hedonism and await a societal collapse, as some are fond of talking about these days? Should we risk speaking out and having our livelihoods destroyed while others go about their regularly scheduled routines and ignore us? Should we call upon a higher power to direct us, even if that means undertaking unpopular action on our own? That’ll get you locked up for even trying to talk about it. Shall we just continue watching this crazy saga unfold like we always have, chomping neurotically at the bit like we usually do? Shall we try to brainwash ourselves with positive thinking in an effort to find peace within this storm?

I don’t know the way forward from here on out. Mostly I’m plagued with a bunch of questions. A gradual shift in another direction won’t be coming though, that much I’m willing to bank on. And I’m not sure how tolerant we can expect to remain while our rights are stripped from us.

It’s a hell of a conundrum we find ourselves in nowadays. But, as always remains true: nobody promised us a rose garden. C’est la vie.

Something that’s been on my mind lately as I’ve been delving into learning about the so-called “esoteric arts” and whatnot is this question of hate. This is a term popularly tossed around in political discourse these days and is intended to denote a sense of self-righteousness, superiority, vulgar mistreatment of others, etc. Though it’s now commonly being tossed around so haphazardly in response to differing opinions that it’s losing its meaning and is regarded by many of us as merely a dismissive gesture toward opinions one doesn’t care to wrestle with or take seriously.

But the notion of hate runs much deeper than that. It used to be said that hate counters love, but over time it makes better sense to me to see hate and love as passions that are countered by indifference (apathy) at the opposite extreme.

When it comes to the esoteric traditions, however, the word hate takes on a different meaning altogether. Not sure how deep I care to get into my thoughts on this subject today, but I’d like to at least touch on the topic for a while here, because it’s troubling me and thereby forcing me to continue conducting research so as to gain a better understanding of the traditions of old and to question my own social conditioning and how that actually might be misleading me (and others in society).

There’s a theology of sorts referred to as Luciferianism. I won’t claim to be terribly familiar with it yet, but Lucifer (the fallen angel, also associated with the Devil) is historically understood to be the “light bringer.” Now, if we back up and consider biblical scriptures of the Old Testament, we are aware that the story of Adam and Eve centered around them eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, presented to them by the serpent. Knowledge — that being the key point there. Expanding human awareness.

Another biblical story that keeps returning to mind lately is that of the Tower of Babel, in which humans somehow united to where they shared a common language as well as technologies available at the time which they then used to construct (presumably metaphorically) a tower that reached to the heavens. In essence, this appears to be about human ingenuity reaching toward God-like status. And this was achieved through the unification of various peoples throughout the land, hence why their punishment (again, best understood metaphorically) was that they were all scattered and given different languages and essentially knocked back into dark ages, effectively destroying their chances of attempting such a feat again anytime soon. Literal interpretations of this story tend to obscure the real danger being pointed to here: the great proclivity within human beings to strive to come together and to create societies and/or institutions and/or technologies that might rival that which we call God.

So often we hear people speak almost childishly about such stories, proclaiming them to be mere testaments of how jealous the Christian God of the bible is. But that’s a distracting way to look at it, in my opinion. Because I see us now striving to create just that same sort of “tower to heaven” once again. And we’re being instructed to unite and to love one another and to see past our differences, all of which sounds appealing on the surface. But what if we’re actually being encouraged to go against our natures in a way that isn’t ultimately beneficial in the ways we might dream it could be? What if, perhaps, we’re actually serving an ideology that has trans-humanist ambitions that would wind up eradicating all that we value in human life?

Probably sounds like a stretch, and I would’ve thought so too not that long ago.

Food for thought (exhibit A):

The topic of tribalism keeps returning to my mind also these days. Partly because of racial/cultural conflicts here and abroad. Partly because of events in my own life that have been forcing me to reckon with the very real need for us as humans to identify with and belong to some sort of tribe (though not necessarily in accordance with racial divisions – in fact, I believe it’s distinctly ideological/cultural). This does not appear to be a proclivity we can overcome nor that it will likely prove beneficial for us to attempt to do so beyond a reasonable extent. Why? Because this is how we as humans function psychologically and socially and it’s where meaning is derived in our lives. We function best when trying to solve problems and overcome obstacles and while preserving and protecting what we deem sacred.

Everything melding into everything else is the opposite of that. When lines and boundaries become indistinct and relativity undermines all morality and cultural differences, we cannot help but lose our sense of self.

But, new-age movement people might say, that is healthy for us since we should be striving at this point in history to overcome our ego identification and instead to see ourselves as part of a greater unity. Yes and no. There’s value in examining both sides of that duality, but we humans indeed must live with duality. The oneness some are placing on a high pedestal these days isn’t a place where humans can live, thrive and continue to function day to day as what we are. Hence why this proposed “upgrade” requires us to be biologically and technologically enhanced so as to accept it. Lest we simply go mad in the chaos it cannot help but usher in when all values are destroyed.

Why do we strive toward such an idea? Why has it become so tempting? One reason is because it has been sold to us as the pathway toward peace. BUT, considering that such a transition is trans-humanistic to the core, it’s essentially calling for our destruction as human beings. We must cease to be what we are in order to move forward into this vision for the future. And in this vision that some are celebrating (see the video above), artificial intelligence and other man-made technologies are what become idolized. Are these not false prophets and idols? Not because a jealous God might proclaim them to be, but because our faith in our own ingenuity can’t guarantee this game will play out as hoped. I am willing to bet everything that it will not lead us to the paradise we seek. Unless by paradise we simply mean death, and yes, in death there may indeed be peace. Perhaps.

I get conflicted on this subject, wondering if maybe this is truly the next frontier that we humans will be forced to reckon with, whether we want to or not. That maybe this is some sort of “natural” trajectory, if only because our species is prone to fall in love with its own creations and discoveries (albeit while demonstrating repeatedly a severe shortcoming in terms of long-term foresight). We are dreamers, and this is the new dream for some among us. They wish for us to believe a more centralized world where virtual reality can replace the hardships of actual reality will be a worthwhile escape for our species.

In this I see extinction. I see death. I see arrogance and pride and greed. I see an unwillingness to grasp the blessings we have already, even if they must be hard-won through suffering and introspection and pain. The dream to transcend this reality strikes me as a foolish nightmare where I cannot follow. But perhaps enough others do wish for such possibilities to come into being, and who am I to try to stop them? Wouldn’t do any good if I tried, most likely.

Still, I look back on what historical records we do have access to and see this is not entirely a new trend. Human folly has a way of circling back around and renewing itself over time, that much is a given. Interesting to learn about though. Probably the key takeaway in all of this pertains to the need to work on and save oneself. Might not be able to ever change the minds of others, and certainly we can’t draw others nearer to us and our worldview without showing them that this reality and humanity as a whole isn’t so terrible, that attempting to transcend it isn’t really the better option. But how do you show that in this day and age when so much indeed is terrible? When politicians on all sides are woefully corrupt, when major businesses invade our privacy and mold our thinking, when there are so many divisions that have been sown and we drive one another nuts on a daily basis?

I don’t know. Am thinking there’s no real way out of this conundrum since I’m pretty damn sure humanity is heading in the trans-humanist direction because they believe that dream might prove better. So there’s your apocalypse on the horizon. Artificial intelligence embraced worldwide appears to be what the bible refers to as the Anti-Christ. The reason it is Anti-Christ is because it is anti-human. Christ was first and foremost our Brother, and this new era seeks to transcend Him and us and all that we ever were or otherwise could be.

Not speaking as a Christian here, but I do have an admitted fondness for Jesus. His story confuses me at times too, though, seeing as how he encouraged us to love one another, yet it’s not terribly clear where we should draw lines. Make a scene in the temple and disrupt the usurers, yes — but now we live in the land of usury. Love all as if our neighbors and kin, sounds good — but also we’re instructed to hate the sin. The bible is a very confusing and complicated text that seems to contradict itself throughout. What does it mean to love in the way Jesus intended? To show mercy, yes, but what about justice? Why has justice been downplayed? So that those currently in power can get away with their crimes, of course. Why were we humans instructed in the bible to behave as lambs? Are we to understand that to mean we should be so docile that we become prey? Are we to be pacifists? How human is that?

Back to the notion of light and knowledge — what is it we’re trying to illuminate here? Humanity’s capacity for good and evil? Surely we will get to see plenty more of that. Why is Lucifer, the bringer of light, considered the bad guy of the bible, the Devil? Are we to take that to mean we’re better off ignorant? Or is it simply pointing to the reality that knowledge is a double-edged sword? That seems to be it. Is it possible that the greater the dream, accompanied by the technologies capable of possibly manifesting such a dream, then the greater the consequent fall? I think that sounds about right also.

Perhaps we’re incapable of turning away from such dreams once they’ve sprouted in our collective imaginations. The desire to know where a path leads overpowers us, engages our curiosity and tempts us into believing we can resolve our worldly problems. Nevermind that there are very powerful people behind the scenes pushing this agenda. How might they plan to benefit? Is what they’re selling to us the full story? Do you really think those who’ve grown most powerful across the world are looking out for all of humanity’s best interest? Do you believe this to be an altruistic ambition on their part? When always before they have acted in ways that lead to them accruing greater power, wealth and control, always greater gains for themselves regardless of how much blood must be spilled in that pursuit.

Seems to me, whatever those belonging to old, wealthy, powerful families and institutions are pushing for, we’d be wise to go the opposite way.

When have they ever led us somewhere truly beneficial that hasn’t come with great pain and a high price to pay in exchange? But perhaps that’s just the way of people and of life and maybe it cannot be helped.

I get to thinking lately that being knocked back into a stone age might actually be a better place to wind up than to allow ourselves to be permanently genetically, biologically, and perhaps even technologically transfigured. Though contaminants in our environment are already altering us hormonally and likely genetically, so I guess the process is underway whether we like it or not. That’s a cost of living in the type of world we have right now, leaving aside for a moment whatever the future may hold in store.

Crazy times. So much to ponder on. But this Luciferian thing, and its rise in popularity that even celebrities appear to be embracing (at least symbolically), is a very strange trend.

A thought keeps returning to me lately. When in the Christian bible it is said that the meek shall inherit the earth, perhaps what that really means is that lower lifeforms will inherit the earth. Think plants, protozoans, and prokaryotes. (Or, thanks to human ingenuity, perhaps even nanotechnology.) The smallest of the organisms. That would make sense, when you really stop and think about it, considering how the cellular level always adapts and eventually triumphs over whatever we attempt. The microscopic evolve much faster than we do, putting us and other higher life forms at an ongoing disadvantage, with no end in sight.

Also, consider the scripture where it was said that lions will someday lay down with the lambs. Maybe by that what is really meant is that lions and lambs (e.g., higher-level lifeforms) will both succumb to death, as in going extinct as species. Just a thought…

Seems to me life is crazier than we can imagine and that it’s so obviously not constructed to cater to our human whims and wishes.

Was just listening to a youtuber Christian that I turn to from time to time to hear his commentary on current events. Today he was complaining bitterly about how stupid we human beings have become, how our civilization project has led us to become weak and incompetent, comparing us to modern farmed chickens and how far from natural they’ve strayed. What he’s pointing at there is domestication, and yes, we humans are subject to this as well, as should be apparent by now. Does it make us lazy and stupid? Yes. We too are far from natural in nearly every sense, having forgotten in a few generation’s time how to provide even the basics for our own survival. I’ve bitched about this plenty over time as well, noting how most of us nowadays only know how to wave around money, not create things of actual productive value. Sure, modern economics is largely to blame for bringing us to this point, and overpopulation, popular socialization, and increasing technological dependence will keep us here. Is this trend going to lead to human extinction? Perhaps. But such concerns no longer bother me much anymore. C’est la vie. Special as we are, we’re not above Nature. Though undoubtedly a few of us will brave the storm and survive on in the future dark ages. Maybe. Or maybe not, depending on the disaster(s) that befalls us.

I can understand people getting riled up over these topics, angry that we humans can’t seem to change course. But at the same time I also try to accept that we’re not as smart as we like to think, or at least we’re not as quickly adaptive due to our mega social/cultural/political/economic systems currently in place. The individual maintains more flexibility than the collective, yet we’re all absorbed in a major collective scheme at this point in time, whether we like it or not. Indeed, we will go down with this ship when the time comes because there is no alternative for most of us. I accept this and reckon I would be one of the first to go down when that day comes, assuming it’s a big catastrophic event rather than a lengthy decline (the latter seeming more plausible). Is what it is. I, for one, am thoroughly dependent on modern conveniences and technologies and can’t barely imagine life outside of them. Being subject to the elements directly and learning to hunt and gather when modern weaponry have run out of available ammunition strikes me as entirely daunting and best left to the survivalist types who train for such scenarios.

This is the downside of domestication. We grow increasingly dependent on the Systems humans have constructed. We know this, and yet some become very depressed when contemplating this reality. I used to as well, but then I came to see that that’s my expectations acting up. Rose gardens were never in the trajectory, much as we love to envision a utopian future. It’s just not realistic. Especially when you consider who are attracted to wielding such power over and within these Systems and how they tend to get there (hint: not through truly democratic voting into office).

Personally, I don’t wish to see the future past a certain point. Wouldn’t know what to do with it. Continually reconfirms my decision to not have children, having no way to prepare them for what’s to come. Just trying to imagine what 20-30 years into the future will hold is mind-boggling enough, based on my readings of where technologies are heading. Where others see possibilities and easier living, I see enhanced domestication and surveillance. That in no way warms my heart or makes me hopeful for my species, though I do aim to maintain an open mind since I have no way of truly knowing how it will all shake out in the end. Maybe we will get lucky and knock ourselves back into a stone age, that seeming to me to be a better alternative than winding up within intensely technologically-advanced totalitarian societies. The future looks very dystopian to me and has for a lot of years now, try as I might to imagine things working out more in the people’s favor.

Hence why I can’t stand these gender-bent movements and racial movements and other ideological oddities intent on separating us from one another. Just creates more suffering in the meantime, and very little of what they have to say is actually relevant in the big picture. Not really. Just keeps us blaming one another while our ship rocks and threatens to sink, as if that will change a thing for the better. Even our stupid political divides have come to look like nonsense to me over time. Corporate-backed teams with more in common than not, parading as if competing in our media circus. Just another smokescreen, another illusion that we all-too-willingly buy into.

So I guess when I think about these things nowadays, I’m overcome with the thought that we should probably make life easier on one another in the interim. Maybe quit paving the way to hell in our own individual fashions so far as we’re able. Cease blaming others who weren’t alive when the ball first began rolling and who individually have no more power than we do to stop it. Guess I’m taking more of a hospice outlook on life at this point, though I understand that simply making ourselves more comfortable isn’t necessarily the best idea either. But screaming profanities at one another constantly and casting blame wholesale and telling others to get off the planet certainly isn’t helping anything. Much as I don’t like the notion of coddling our illusions, I also take issue with the idea of stripping them from people and leaving them with nothing to believe in. Seems the latter will prove to be a more dangerous tactic, leading more into nihilism and a sense of despair and futility, which will only further paralyze people. That doesn’t sound like the right thing to do.

As I was talking about with a couple friends lately, everywhere I’ve explored has eventually wound me up at the same place, which is to go to God. And by that I do not mean religion, though I’m not exactly sure what it does mean. That’s just the feeling inside my heart and head more and more these days. Like this is too big for any one of us to comprehend and to take on, and perhaps we’d be better off giving one another reasons to maintain faith in humanity and that which is good and proper and reliable, rather than tearing it all down and leaving people with nothing to believe in. This is an intensely personal and emotional topic for me and not one that I typically care to speak about with others outside of my closest people, so I won’t run on much about it here. It’s just a recurring thought, a pull in a direction that I’m not yet able to fully grasp the meaning of but recognize it as significant. That which I call God isn’t what religions have taught about, though past people tried to point toward it to the best of their limited abilities. It’s incomprehensible in a way, yet very meaningful in Its reminder that life follows a “plan” we can’t control and dominate, try as we might. Perhaps referring to it as life’s “flow” is more accurate, though we tend to conceive of it as if it is a plan since we can note that its workings indeed do appear to have some sort of rhyme or reason. Just not in line with our human melodrama, which then perplexes us. I won’t pretend to understand It, and I certainly won’t attempt to articulate my thoughts about It beyond what I’ve said already since I’m not the one to attempt to do so. And that’s fine. Striving for a personal understanding is all one really can ever hope for, considering we can’t help but experience this life through our own subjective lenses.

As someone who hasn’t been religiously affiliated in over 20 years now, I admit that it feels a little weird to keep feeling this pull toward that which is greater than us, not knowing how to describe it or what it all may mean. Atheists and skeptics would look upon someone like me and say that I’ve grown scared enough that I’m just grasping for straws at this point, when in reality I’ve actually grown calmer through this process of exploration. I was far more scared in years past, back before I began to release my expectations and try to accept life simply for what it is, good, bad and ugly alike. That transition maybe was brought about originally through fear and fatigue from fretting, but I didn’t go searching for it so much as it just crept up on me over time. And I don’t know why or how or what any of it means, but I’m willing to listen to It and accept not having answers. Because there’s nowhere else to go, quite literally. So maybe it is some sort of figment of my imagination — that’s always possible. But perhaps it’s a useful one, far more so than all this bickering and team-joining and politicking and expecting humanity to find its way out of our myriad conundrums. I don’t think we can, not in the foreseeable future. And I do believe there are people poised and ready to take full advantage of whatever power grabs become available, because that’s part of human nature to do so. We’re not a good species, but we’re not entirely a bad species either. We just are what we are, complicated as that can’t help but be. Shortsighted and tribal, power-hungry and nepotistic, sometimes charitable but also unavoidably naive…and on and on it goes.

Seems to me there’s no good reason to loathe one’s own species, especially considering none of us are immune to its foibles and fallibility. This is who we are, right and wrong, and it’s what we have to work with. So many seek power over others, believing that to be supremely meaningful, but really it’s learning to exercise power over oneself that’s especially tricky. We’re not too good at that. Domestication may be partly to blame today, but this problem follows us back to the very beginning of human origins. It’s the perennial conundrum that most of us don’t even begin recognizing the importance of until we’re more than a couple decades into living and will struggle with for the rest of our lives. It’s certainly easier to deflect outward, to blame those over there for our problems, even those at the top, but really we’ve all been complicit in the games we play in this life. Whether we initially meant to be or not, we became so and remain so even after we start becoming aware of what’s going on. No political party or laws on the book can rectify this matter for us. It’s an innate flaw within us — just part of living as sentient life who are always growing and exploring and learning. Can’t be helped and can’t be altogether changed. So no, there is no utopian on the horizon, just more human errors in judgment and striving for power and popularity and playing of the games as have been set before us by previous generations. Plus more technological prowess that many of us don’t fully understand and that most of us will not be able to control.

And on and on it goes. Sometimes it feels very daunting to take in, but other times I feel relatively at peace about it, sad as it can’t help but make me. Am I still scared of the future? Sure. How could you not be if you’re really looking into what’s being developed and what ideologies are growing in strength and numbers? I worry a lot for my loved ones, but I take some solace in the fact that our lives will only last so long. Some say that’s pessimistic thinking on my part, but what really strikes me as pessimistic would be if we were designed to live 150 years or more. That sounds like hell on earth. Which gets me thinking about the reason why I lost my religion in the first place as a young teen: I couldn’t believe in infinite suffering in hell. That’s what broke me out of that faith originally, finding no answers to that question. And since then I’ve come to understand at least that hell is something we humans can create on earth, and I can’t help but believe that in the future we will construct a greater hell than has ever been known before. That’s not what I’d like to believe, but all signs keep pointing in that direction. Why? Because our good intentions don’t tend to jibe with reality, as has been proven time and time again, yet technologies can and will allow for the formation of far more invasive ways of life. And many people will embrace them, believing the hype and accepting the rhetoric claiming that these technologies will aid us in reducing waste and saving the planet/climate and becoming evermore efficient as societies and within corporations. People will believe it because they wish to, going back to that naivete mentioned earlier. And people will gnash their teeth and people like myself, calling us fear-mongerers and luddites and pessimists for not gleefully being on board. To which I say: we’ll inherit the life we deserve. So be it. We do not understand freedom and have shown nearly a fearfulness of it and the responsibilities it requires of us to maintain it. That much is clear by now. So we will get what we help bring about. Right or wrong.

I’m just grateful that life isn’t too long. Allows us to appreciate what time we do have and what people we’re lucky to know while alive. I can grieve for my country and my species in general, but it will change nothing. We’re an interesting lot, if nothing else. Life is indeed fascinating and mysterious, and I look forward to observing it continuing to unfold during my lifetime. I try to tell myself not to be afraid, that it’s just life and this is how it can go. That no suffering can go on indefinitely (though some torturers have demonstrated to the public that it certainly can go on far longer than one can sanely endure — hence our capacity for evil). Feels like a game of whack-a-mole sometimes where the objective for the average layperson is to not get shut up in a box somewhere, whether by a government entity or a crazed stranger or even in an abstract, ideological sense whereby the box is fictitious yet we treat it as if it’s real and keep ourselves within its parameters out of fear and/or obedience.

Life is crazy, life is mad. And it always will be, that much is guaranteed. But with the notion of God comes Love, and I think that’s of infinite importance right about now. Others in the distant past have said it’s true, but reality keeps demonstrating just how true it really is. But then again, that topic perplexes me too, so I continue to grapple with it, not comprehending what it’s even asking of me. Not known for being a very forgiving person myself, so I’m likely very limited in my understanding of what that all may mean. But I will continue to explore it, feeling that it’s very important and deserving of our dedicated attention and contemplation.

Makes me feel very humble reckoning with all this stuff, feeling like a little animal who’s just not competent to make sense of so much in this life. It can be very overwhelming, undeniably so. But I’m trying not to be paralyzed by reality so that I may participate in a more meaningful and productive fashion. However successful I prove to be at that is yet to be seen. My prayer today for all of us is that we be willing to reckon with all sorts of unknowns, particularly those which contemporary “wisdom” deems as off-limits, irrational, or otherwise heretical. I believe it will be good for us to do so, albeit difficult as well.

My thinking seems to oscillate daily. Sometimes I get irate over racist extremists — like black supremacists and their push for “communalism” (“one mind, one choice” to quote Latausha Nedd, a.k.a. Eye Empress Sekhmet) and outright rejection of individualism. As was the case yesterday. Then the next night rolls around and I realize just how much they’re fighting an uphill battle, not against white people or society but again Nature unto itself when it comes to trying to staunch and reverse humanity’s gravitation toward individuation. It’s where humans have been heading for the last few thousands of years and it won’t cease just because some ideologies wish for it to. In fact, those ideologies are destined to fail and cause grave destruction on account of going against the natural flow in trying to force human groups backward into outdated modes of existence. Won’t work. Hasn’t thus far. The 20th century demonstrated how devastating attempting to go down that path will be, and the 21st century will prove it again if enough feel so inclined to keep trying to force a square peg through a round hole.

It’s foolish to think we can return to the past. Not possible. Yet it remains popular for people yearn for and romanticize past epochs, believing life to have been simpler then and people to have been kinder (at least within one’s own tribe). We infuse these dreams of the past with magical properties, and then take the view that we have fallen from the grace they represented. That’s the interesting thing about dreams and imaginings — we can concoct them any way we wish. Their adherence to factual reality is irrelevant to us. We gaze fondly upon an imagined past most likely because we’re so uncomfortable with the uncertainty of the present and the future. And that too is a natural inclination.

When I refer to us humans as a bunch of modern-day Luddites, I’m only half joking. We really are, and it’s understandable in a sense. And because of this we’re keen on seeking out someone or something to blame: God, other races and groups and nations, modernity itself, other political camps, influential philosophies that we take issue with, etc. This is all part of the reckoning process that comes with living, especially in such drastically changing times. Lifestyles of a century ago are so foreign to us that we cannot relate, and because of this we get to thinking we’ve been robbed of something precious. Well, we have lost what once was, but, in turn, we’ve also gained what now is and what perhaps may someday be. Everything in life involves a trade-off, whether we like it or not. And Life doesn’t consult with us on whether we’re cool with that — it simply rolls on and we either learn to roll with it or get dragged along. Right or wrong, that does appear to be a fact of life.

On hearing that I’m sure some folks will dig in their heels all the more and proclaim someone like me to be jaded, overly cynical, even nihilistic perhaps. They may think I’ve given up hope, which is not the case. I’m just coming to terms little by little with what’s in my control and what isn’t. The past most definitely isn’t. Though you and I can impact the present and possibly the future as well. So that’s where I am being called to turn my attention, having long been one of the most stubborn Luddites out here who also liked to entertain dreams of what may have come before and harbored resentment over it being wrested from us. I too have been angry over so many things and cast blame in various directions, and still do at times. But, little by little, I’m starting to see this world a bit differently along with my role within it.

The individuation process is very necessary. Consider it the next big leap in the evolutionary progress of humankind. Another step in our progression away from pure animality and primitive sapienhood. Of course the process is painful and trying — when has living and growing not involved suffering? Suffering actually appears to be fundamentally necessary here, prompting expansion of one’s mind and empathetic reflections to enhance relations with other people and the world at-large. Don’t take that in the lovey-dovey sense, as if I think we’re all going to come together and sing kumbaya anytime soon. No, I’m referring to alterations to how we view and live in the world and communicate with one another, which are all forged through trial and error and many hardships and pain and sorrow that can lead us toward a greater consciousness and appreciation for Love, connections, critical inquiry, and grasping what’s of real value.

But this path I speak of is a lonesome valley. Can’t be any other way. People are trying (unconsciously or sub-consciously) to seek refuge in groups and movements and identity politics in an effort to avoid this path and all that goes with it. You can run but you can’t hide. There is no past to retreat to. It’s no more than a fiction in our minds at this point so far as retreating is concerned. Yet people keep trying to go that route, perhaps more and more nowadays, probably because they’re growing all the more terrified with life and where it might be headed. As is understandable, to an extent.

“There’s nothing to fear but fear itself” is an empty platitude that is often repeated but rarely heeded. Why? Because we’re all scared. Very difficult not to be. Uncertainty terrifies us, as does suffering. As does unfolding our own individual potential — that too scares us terribly for some reason, perhaps more than anything else. Maybe because it can’t help but be such an intensely solo (thereby lonely) project, not to mention fraught with worries over being judged by others for whatever fruits we attempt to produce (whether we fail or succeed). Fear of personal failure, especially while observed by others, is huge. And then there’s this nasty requirement that we put in so much effort and learn to turn away from unnecessary distractions (plenty of which we find entertaining). Beyond that, I wonder if it also has something to do with appearing naked in front of our Lord/creator (metaphorically speaking). The group, the hivemind, is a place of refuge not unlike a forest where we appear to be just one tree among many. To stand alone is to stand judged, and that’s a mightily uncomfortable proposition for anyone to contend with. Doesn’t sound like something most of us would willingly sign up for, and many of us therefore don’t.

But life has a way of forcing our hands. One such way, so it appears, is hiding within a group or movement until it grows strong enough that it becomes a monster in its own right that devours a good many of its own as well as those it stands in opposition to. Then all those individuals hidden out therein wind up with a bunch of blood on their own hands (assuming they survive and aren’t one of the ones targeted by the beast of their own making), which they then wind up judged for. Possibly for generations to come. They may cry out that they themselves, individually, were innocent and did not envision nor endorse what the beast eventually became, but others will mock them as cowards and pretenders in response, and rightly so. You built up that aggregated beast through your own individual efforts and contributions — that was a choice. Perhaps it was the easiest choice at the time, but it remained a choice nonetheless. To have otherwise faced scorn and ridicule, rendered alienated or been effectively deserted or maybe even targeted for attack and possibly killed — STILL it was a choice. Because the decision is difficult and the consequences potentially dire does not negate the fact that a choice was made.

So people can wind up tainted by the sins of that which they help create and build up and attempt to hide within, or we can risk being tainted by the sins of our own direct doing without a refuge to obscure us and our activities. Many of us prefer the former since if we do indeed prove to be wrong, the blame and shame winds up distributed among all involved, lessening our own sense of culpability (and/or public witness of it) via camouflage. Seems like a good plan, until it isn’t. Great consequences can be meted out to those deemed responsible for horrific wrongdoing, plenty of which are psychological in nature. And those who truly weren’t comfortable with the direction their organization was heading but who remained involved just the same wind up tarred and feathered along with the rest in the aftermath. No pity shown for them either because they chose to go that route. Here we can reflect on how societies across the world today view the German Nazis and the Russian Communists and the Chinese Maoists of yesteryear — still unforgiven (and unforgivable) decades later. And on and on it goes…

But one doesn’t hide within one’s race unless one makes a conscious identity of it. Because others attribute unwarranted characteristics to you based on your race doesn’t make you automatically guilty. There is a difference between what one is and can’t change and what one chooses to partake in (like an identity-based movement).

Either way, we will potentially face scorn and hardship and blame, no matter who we are. Attempting to hide within a human-made forest won’t change that, nor will standing alone on one’s own merit. BUT at least when one goes his or her own way and grapples with life in an authentic fashion, we’re hiding less from ourselves and others and thereby are capable of learning and clearly observing what will and will not work (assuming one’s goal is to be fruitful, and by that I mean honestly productive, e.g. life-affirming in orientation). Obscuring such truths only prolongs the process and the accompanying pain inherent in it. So taking the easy way today might very well lead to much greater long-term suffering for oneself and/or our descendants (those we claim to care so much about).

No group/movement is capable of instilling these truths into the minds of its members. Each individual has to reckon with and come to terms with what is and what is not on his or her own. Nobody else on earth can do it for us. If one opts to tune out and refuses to explore and examine information for oneself, then potential growth will be stunted for that particular individual, with no one else possessing the power to change that fact. If we choose the less studious route and allow a group or movement to indoctrinate us with talking points in place of real information that we have fact-checked and quibbled over, then we’ve allowed ourselves to be misled. That is one’s own responsibility since we are our own gatekeepers as adults. And if that group/movement we’ve chosen affiliation with goes into beast mode and creates havoc, we deserve our fair portion of the blame for having provided it fuel to grow and become what it has.

At bottom, there’s no way to escape personal responsibility. Try as we might to fight it and run from it, we’ll keep being returned to face this human truth. Again and again and again. Until we learn it and strive to act in accordance, it will continue being Ground Hog Day on this planet — repeating the same mistakes over and over with painful consequences that provide an opportunity for reflection, introspection and personal growth. It is ultimately our choice on what we each decide to do. If people prefer to create hell on earth by refusing to come to grips with this, then hell we shall have.

There are rules that are beyond our making but that must be lived in accordance with if we’re to ever transcend our current conundrums. I’d like to tell you that I’m sorry for this, but actually I’m not. It’s just life. Is what it is, and that’s okay. I happen to find it very interesting and awe-inspiring, albeit unnerving and very tough to come to terms with each step of the way. My prayer for others is that they too come to embrace Life’s wonder and strangeness without letting too much fear and pressure from other humans get in the way of exploring the possibilities. Take care.

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Quotes

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." -- Demosthenes (350 B.C.E.)

"A man is incapable of comprehending any argument that interferes with his revenue." -- René Descartes (1650)

"Our beliefs are not automatically updated by the best evidence available. They often have an active life of their own and fight tenaciously for their own survival." -- D. Marks and R. Kammann

"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true." -- Francis Bacon

"If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted." -- Karl Popper (The Poverty of Historicism)

“We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.” ― Joseph Campbell

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin

"He that is not aware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge." -- Richard Whately

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -- Robert Openheimer

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." -- T. S. Eliot

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." -- Kenneth Boulding, economist

"The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us." -- Eric Hoffer

"Oh God, how did I get into this room with all these weird people?" -- Stewart Brand

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- George Orwell

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." -- Dresden James

"Examine the records of history, recollect what has happened within the circle of your own experience, consider with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly unfortunate, either in private or public life, whom you may have either read of, or hear of, or remember, and you will find that the misfortunes of by far the greater part of them have arisen from their not knowing when they were well, when it was proper for them to set still and to be contented." -- Adam Smith

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand." -- Bertolt Brecht

"No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself." -- Lord Greville

"I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so." -- Romain Rolland

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control credit." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Bank of England (1927)

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." -- James A. Garfield

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." -- Patrick Henry

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." -- Albert Einstein

"The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is. Love is the subtlest force in the world. The law of love governs the world. Life persists in the face of death. The universe continues in spite of destruction going on. Truth triumphs over untruth. Love conquers hate." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"Whoever tells the truth is chased out of nine villages." -- Turkish proverb

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin

"We were created to love and be loved." -- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." -- Galileo Galilei

"This is the average man, and he is right in his anxiousness, because it is a matter of the fathers and mothers of all the terrors he is bringing to this world in the form of Communism and H-bombs, and last but not least by his fertility and the inevitable overpopulation." -- Carl Jung (Letters Vol. II, Pages 496-497)

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." -- Patrick Henry

"Freedom is participation in power." -- Cicero, Roman orator

"The world is full enough of hurts and mischance without wars to multiply them." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson

"In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." -- Albert Einstein

"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." -- Thomas Jefferson (1817)

"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you're making progress." -- Malcolm X

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

"Ignorance is not bliss---it's oblivion." -- Phillip Wylie

"Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1938)

"Superstition, which is widespread among the nations, has taken advantage of human weakness to cast its spell over the mind of almost every man." -- Cicero

"We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent." -- James Warburg (1950)

"Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it." -- George Bernard Shaw

"There are a lot of exiles in this world. Each one has his own reason; we have ours. Long before we left America, the America we knew left us. We travel not to get away from it, but to find it." -- Bill Bonner, expatriate

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions." -- Blaise Pascal

"The gods mercifully gave mankind this little moment of peace between the religious fanaticisms of the past and the fanaticisms of class and race that were speedily to arise and dominate time to come." -- G. M. Trevelyan

"Truth does not do so much good in the world as the appearance of it does evil." -- Duc François de La Rochefoucauld

"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?" -- Ayn Rand

“It was not accidental; it was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international Bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.” -- Louis McFadden referring to the Great Depression (1930s)

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?" -- Bertolt Brecht

"I sincerely believe … that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." -- Thomas Jefferson (1816)

"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being." -- Theodore Roosevelt (1910)

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or it is not, believed by a majority of the people." -- Giordano Bruno

"We are at the parting of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world — no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." -- Woodrow Wilson (1913)

“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.” -- Dante Alighieri (The Inferno)

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand

"The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them." -- Emily Bronte

"Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth." -- Mark Twain

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -- Benjamin Franklin

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury." -- Alexander Tyler

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -- James Madison

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth, they will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest." -- Anonymous

"Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party." -- Winston Churchill

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." -- James Madison (Political Observations, 1795)

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams

“The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed.” -- Ayn Rand

"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering, Hitler's designated successor

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of ignorance." -- Amos Bronson Alcott

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that distinctions between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion." -- Albert Einstein

"The way that can be told is not the eternal way." -- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)

“The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.” -- Will Rogers

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." -- Joseph Pulitzer (1904)

"Madness is rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the﻿ power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may make their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingling with or near them who oppose their movement.” –- Abraham Lincoln (1848)

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." -- James Madison

"We need a Jeffersonian revolution. If it doesn't happen, our democracy will continue to weaken and things will get worse. Right now, we have a two-party electoral dictatorship with each party looking for the highest corporate bidder." -- Ralph Nader

“We are not blind! We are men and women with eyes and brains… and we don’t have to be driven hither and thither by the blind workings of The Market, or of History, or of Progress, or of any other abstraction.” -- Fritz Schumacher

"Being confirmed by others frees me from being responsible for the absurdity of my belief." -- Theodor Geiger

"The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.” -- Bertolt Brecht

"The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sound of whines, bawls, screams and invective will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice." -- Linda Bowles

"We can now do what we want, and the only question is what do we want? At the end of our progress we stand where Adam and Eve once stood: all we are faced with now is the moral question." -- Max Frisch

"The truth is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine." -- J.B.S. Haldane

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is---infinite." -- William Blake

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." -- Bertrand Russell

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"[...] let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." -- part of Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)